Human Responses to the Relationships between Object Shapes and Movements in the Context of Visual Attention and S-R Compatibility

Abstract

The noninverted triangle is generally regarded as more stable than the inverted one. The perception of stability/instability may vary when it is moving. Triangles moving in their pointing direction might be perceived as naturally moving and especially stable, which can lead to preferred and facilitated processing. We conducted three experiments in which noninverted and inverted triangles moved upwards or downwards. The results showed that participants preferred triangles moving in their pointing direction over those moving against their pointing direction and were faster in selecting and finding triangles with compatible than incompatible movement. These results can be explained by stimulus-response compatibility, which means that responses to stimuli are faster and more accurate when the properties of the stimulus and response are compatible than when they are not. The results help improve human-object interactions in different contexts like car driving, user interfaces, or virtual reality.